by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
Alan Pickert tried to keep the Jacksonville Bar Association’s Thursday meeting from turning into a Florida Gator pep rally. But with Athletic Director Jeremy Foley as the speaker, the JBA president had his hands full.
Orange-and-blue-striped ties were commonplace inside the Omni Hotel ballroom that hosted the meeting. County Court Judge Mallory Cooper shattered any pretenses of a non-partisan affair when she opened the meeting by thanking Foley for three Southeastern Conference football championships won between 1994 and 1998. Cooper’s son Collins played on those Steve Spurrier-led teams.
“I’ve got to chastise Judge Cooper just a bit,” joked Pickert. “I tell everybody this isn’t going to be a Gator pep rally and the first thing she does is thank Mr. Foley for the SEC championships.”
Gator ties run deep in the JBA. Foley’s appearance was in no small part due to an invitation from Tom Donahoo, partner at Donahoo, Ball & McMenamy and immediate past president of Gator Boosters, Inc. Two-time president Gene Peek of Peek, Cobb, Edwards & Ashton took in Foley’s speech from a front table. Public Defender Bill White, also a Gator booster, sat at Foley’s right hand as the Florida AD spoke.
The booster club is registered as a charitable corporation. The nationwide network raises $30 million a year for UF. That’s almost half the athletic department’s $70 million budget. said Foley.
“There’s no doubt that the Jacksonville legal community provides a very strong support base for the University of Florida,” said Foley. “We play the Florida/Georgia game here, we play basketball games here every year. I think of Jacksonville as my second home.”
Peek said UF’s local law school alums take pride in the athletic department’s success on and off the field. Basketball, football and baseball games provide common ground to keep Gator graduates connected, he said.
“Athletics are a major part of the glue that holds the school together,” said Peek. “Eighty-thousand people aren’t going to show up to watch a chemistry experiment.”
It was another packed house that showed up to see Foley. Pickert said some latecomers had to be turned away for lack of seats. For all the jokes about a pep rally breaking out, Pickert said he didn’t bring in the AD just for the JBA’s Gators. Anyone can learn from Foley’s success as an administrator of one of the country’s largest athletic programs, he said.
“Whether you’re a Gator fan or not, you have to appreciate what he’s done,” said Pickert. “The school’s athletic programs graduate 91 percent of its students and they’ve stayed in the top 10 (for athletic programs as a whole) for the past 23 years. There’s no question he’s one of the top two or three ADs in the nation.”
Foley’s half-hour long comments were wide-ranging. He spoke candidly about several of the major issues confronting college athletics. Among his other comments:
• Foley said his priority as AD was hiring coaches that win with dignity and that are willing to work as a team. Foley said he’s seen too many athletic programs fractured by jealousy among its coaches. As an example Foley pointed to Spurrier’s help in recruiting high school basketball phenom Mike Miller, who went on to lead the Gators to the NCAA finals. “It’s two hours before kickoff of the Tennessee game and I’ve got Spurrier in my office with Miller and [head basketball coach Billy] Donovan and Spurrier’s trying to convince Miller to come to Gainesville.”
Foley uses a simple test to determine qualified coaching candidates. It was suggested by then Kentucky basketball coach Rick Pitino when Foley asked about Donovan, a former Kentucky assistant coach. “Pitino said when he died he was going straight to heaven. I want all my coaches to go straight to heaven.”
• He said a Division-I college football playoff is unlikely. In fact, he said the elimination of the current Bowl Championship Series and a return to the old days of strict conference tie-ins for bowls was more likely. The current system sends 28 teams into the off season with bowl victories, he said. That’s important for building off-season momentum in recruiting and fundraising. “People say there could be a split championship. I say ‘So What?’ If you’re a fan of one of those schools, then to you, your team is the national champion,” he said.
• With Internet message boards turning the heat up on athletic programs, Foley thinks the scrutiny might be getting too intense. He said that the sense of entitlement that descended on Gator fans during Spurrier’s tenure might have been one of the reasons the coach left for the National Football League. And Foley has felt his share of the heat as well. During three underperforming years under former head football coach Ron Zook, Foley said he’d wake up to find “For Sale” signs in his front yard. And he also didn’t appreciate the “Fire Jeremy” billboard that went up on I-75.
• Foley doesn’t see the SEC expanding in the mold of the Big East, which now has 16 teams. The current arrangement divvies up a $560 million television contract with Jefferson Pilot, ESPN and CBS among 12 teams. Only a premier athletic program and university would convince conference members to divide it further, he said.